From sensory gardens to student-constructed ferris wheels, Berkeley County School District teachers have some innovative projects in the works.
Thirty educators/employees from 15 BCSD schools were able to secure funding – either individually or as a team – through Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s 2023 Bright Ideas Education Program.
The program supports innovative and effective classroom education curriculum that cannot be covered by traditional school financing. Individual teachers can apply for grants up to $1,000 while teams of teachers are eligible for grants up to $1,500.
Teachers in public and private schools, K-12 in Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s service area are eligible to participate. Grants are awarded for projects in any discipline and are intended to help teachers within Berkeley Electric Cooperative’s service area produce a better-educated workforce. The grants are designed to help teachers introduce innovative teaching methods.
Grants are awarded annually in a competitive evaluation process. This year, with the support of the community, Berkeley Electric was able to distribute more than $35,000 to 30 different educational projects across the Lowcountry, supporting teachers and their classrooms.
Congratulations to the following teachers:
Berkeley Elementary
Two Berkeley Elementary teachers each received a grant for separate projects. Music teacher Lisa Racioppo will purchase some drums for her students, while special services teacher Brittany Biletzskov plans to purchase a swing for the playground for her students to enjoy.
Berkeley High
Fine arts teachers Will Cotton and Abbey Barnes have an idea of creating an “in-house print shop” where students get involved with printing graphics and text. Students will get hands-on experience with graphic design, the printing process and even the business side of printing. The grant will fund a four-station (color) silk screen printing press.
Cane Bay Middle
Special services teachers Jodi Smith, Traci Hart and Nancy Bone will be using their funds to build a sensory garden in the school’s courtyard. An area of the courtyard has already been set aside for the teachers’ use. The team will order an outdoor glider, a solar water fountain, wind chimes, birdfeeders, some sweet-smelling plants and some ground covering.
“We want the students to be able to touch and interact with everything in our garden,” Smith said.
Cross Elementary
Music teacher Maurice Lawrence is going to buy instruments and supplies for his classroom to provide a more hands-on approach to learning music in school; this includes a parachute, scarves, drums and more.
Goose Creek High
School librarians Melanie Dukes and Joanne Suzara are using the grant money to give the media center a bit of an upgrade. They will purchase a new laminator, two rolls of laminating film and a table to hold the machine.
Meanwhile, special services teacher Jenelie Vagutchay also received a grant and is using it to purchase more interactive instructional materials, manipulatives and educational supplies to help teach her students more independent life skills. Vagutchay works with her students to learn tasks such as making the bed, washing dishes, folding clothes and more.
“Doing this as part of their daily routines will help them develop more life skills and help them become independent,” she said.
H.E. Bonner Elementary
School librarian Melissa Mills named her project “Lego Innovation” because her grant earnings are all about Legos. Mills said the grant will be used for a Lego robot, a Lego robot expansion pack, Lego sets and Lego boards. Students will be able to utilize the Legos as part of the school’s robotics club, but Mills also plans to use the Legos for instruction during students’ library time as well. Students will be able to better compete in robotics competitions, solve innovative projects and design models with all the Lego accoutrements.
Hanahan Elementary
Special services teacher Anna Barrett is using her earnings for a few different things. Her students are a part of a school initiative called the Brew Crew, which operates a coffee cart every Friday to bring fresh coffee to teachers in their classrooms. Barrett said a large portion of the funds is going toward Brew Crew supplies. The rest is to help fund an upcoming field trip to Bitty & Beau’s Coffee in Charleston; the coffee shop is run by people with disabilities.
“I cannot wait for them to see others who have disabilities working in a coffee shop,” Barrett said. “It is my dream for them to be able to do something just like that one day.”
Marrington Elementary
Heide Wittchow has a fun hands-on project in store for her fifth graders: they will be using K’NEX construction toys to create two operational Ferris wheels. One will be a motorized replica of the London Eye Ferris wheel, and the second is an operational six-foot Ferris wheel. The project will incorporate STEAM principles and require teamwork, collaboration and problem-solving among the students.
Philip Simmons High
Special services teacher Daphne Foster named her grant FUNctional Friday with Foster (Triple F), and it is geared toward bringing small kitchen appliances to her classroom.
“Every Friday in my classroom, we make a meal during math to teach the kids skills that they can use with cooking when they graduate,” Foster said. “We also incorporate the math the students have learned during the week.”
Foster said some of the purchased appliances so far include a mini refrigerator, a pressure cooker, an ice cream maker, a microwave and a George Foreman grill.
Sangaree Elementary
School librarian Dawn Frazier and computer lab assistant Kim Weldon joined forces to get funds for a project featuring Novel Engineering, a teaching method to make tie-in connections to a picture book by evaluating problems faced by characters in the story and collaboratively creating inventive solutions with 3-D, open-ended magnetic shape kits called Magformers. This will help expand the school’s Makerspace classroom opportunities, in addition to enhancing their instruction time in the library.
“Our kiddos are going to love working with Magformer Kits,” Frazier said.
Sangaree Middle
Seventh grade science teacher Dr. Michelle Norwood titled her grant project, “Building a Better Biome.” Her students are going to build living habitats next year with materials she will use with the grant funds. Norwood was also a recipient of the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition earlier this school year, and plans to use that money to help her students grow their own healthy produce at school.
Stratford High
Three teams of teachers from Stratford High scored Bright Ideas Grants for different projects.
Special services teachers Kelsey Henson and Seth Hydrick are using the money to fund a music therapist named Jennifer Gossett to come out to the school on a weekly basis and provide their students with 45 minutes of music therapy. Gossett has practiced in the Charleston area since 2012 and became specially certified as a Neurologic Music Therapist in 2017.
Media technology teacher Stella McCombs and culinary arts teacher Carl Calvert are joining together to offer a different food option at lunch for the student body. Calvert’s students will prepare the food items, and McCombs’s students will promote and sell the food items. These experiences will allow for real-world career-building skills between the two classes. Both classes will also use the funds for future competitions and projects for both programs.
Science teachers Sonya Marriott and Kevin Tamayo plan to use their earnings to create a gardening space outside of their classroom. The garden will include raised beds and large flower pots, and hopefully some rain barrels and composters. The teachers said it will not just serve as a garden, but as a space to complete experiments on plants.
Westview Elementary
School librarian Jennifer Beaver is purchasing supplies for various Storybook STEM and Novel Engineering projects for third, fourth and fifth graders. For example, after she reads the picture book “Beekle: An Unimaginary Friend” to third graders, the students will design their own imaginary friend in Google Drawings and then use felt to sew a stuffed animal version of their imaginary friends using kid-friendly needles. To correlate with science standards, students read “Flash and Gleam: Light in Our World” and then created a light-up greeting card using paper light circuits. On the Novel Engineering side, students create their own wish tree using paperclips and colored masking tape after reading “Wishtree”.
“This grant will allow us to incorporate STEM principles in the library - the students always look forward to these activities,” Beaver said.
Westview Primary
Occupational therapist Victoria Wood and physical therapist Dr. Annie Bailey are using the grant to benefit both Westview Primary and Westview Elementary students with special needs by purchasing sensory equipment. The idea is if a student’s sensory needs are met, their learning and academic readiness will improve. Wood said the plan is to purchase an enclosed trampoline structure that can be used as a ball pit. She also put in an order for a four-in-one climbing structure, as well as a water table, more weighted backpacks and vests, additional weight inserts and a sensory table that has arm holes for exploring textures.
“When a student is in their ‘just right zone’, learning occurs,” Wood said. “In order for certain students to get into their 'just right zone', accommodations and sensory strategies are provided.”
Whitesville Elementary
Instructional coach Ann-Marie Cate, first grade teacher Michele Quick and school librarian Carolyn Davis are eager to serve as robotics coaches as they implement First Lego League as an after-school club. Students will learn STEM, teamwork, language, organizational and problem-solving skills while exploring real-world challenges.